Sunday, August 3, 2008

I have just about had enough, and yet I know we are far from through the disgusting swamp of nastiness, racism, and hatred that is going to mark this election and mar my political psyche for decades. Not that this hasn't all been done before-- but we seem headed for the extreme sports version this year.

Bob Herbert has it pegged in his NYT Op Ed; Running While Black

Gee, I wonder why, if you have a black man running for high public office — say, Barack Obama or Harold Ford — the opposition feels compelled to run low-life political ads featuring tacky, sexually provocative white women who have no connection whatsoever to the black male candidates.

Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us — the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.

It is my considered opinion that McSame and the GOP are going to use literally every racial slur or stereotype in the coming weeks. Every one. And so I propose a good old game of bingo.

Lay out your grid card not with numbers but we every pathetic and hate filled racial slur you can think of. We've already seen a bunch. Oreo you say? Got that one. How about jungle fever? Yup. done that. Uppity? We got that one in spades.

If I had LM's bad-ass photoshop skills I would seriously whip up these cards complete with great racially charged images, print them and give them to all my friends and say-- just watch for these and cross them off your card. More importantly cross them out of the discourse. Call them like you see them. AND make sure to call them stupid, predictable, and beneath the American people. Feel free to use the blank card above and fill in the squares!

What do you win for surviving this game? Maybe the White House. Hopefully we also can win back the political discourse.

Let's face it, economy in the toilet, home foreclosures and restaurant closings at record highs, infrastructure failing, pointless war still being waged-- we really don't have time for this crap. And therefore we don't have time for McSame and the Republican party and their tired old games.